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They have operating costs; I'd imagine that this is how they justify not paying nor accumulating the small sums over time. Whether their operating costs really amount to however well your game sold and what your cut would be, I can't say, but in principle it's a sound argument.

With electronic payments these days, I don't see how it's a big deal forwarding small amounts to people. On Paypal, you can cash out at any time, no matter the amount. Make the request online, and they transfer the money immediately.

@icemann - And I still don't get how you can sell 150 copies of your game at $5 - totaling $750 - and not get a dime of it. That's robbery. Even with Steam's cut, they should be sending you a check for $525, rigtht?

But no, what Icemann is saying is that they stole his money rather than paying it.

The Steam FAQ says that they just hold the money until they have more than $100 to pay out, the same as Epic do. It doesn't say anything about them stealing that money if you don't earn enough in a month.

Q. Is there a minimum revenue I must earn before I can receive a payment?
A. Yes. There are costs associated with issuing each individual payment as well as potential bank fees charged to you upon receiving money that make it prohibitive to pay out for small amounts of money. Therefore, we may hold your payment until a minimum of $100 payout is earned.

To me that says, once your balance (minus Steam's fees, of course) gets above $100, they will transfer the money. There's nothing remotely close to saying "your balance resets to zero in a month if you don't earn $100." They use the term "hold your payment" which seems to indicate they're saving it, not erasing it. But maybe Icemann can clear this up.

Of that I received only $113.64. Chasing this one up with Steam/Valve's financial people to see what happened.

Found records on Steamworks for payments made. Could only look back in bank account for the current and previous financial year. So can't see anything from prior. Apparently they only paid me during the first year it was up for sale, which leaves $256 outstanding. Well over their payment threshold. In their FAQ it doesn't say anything about things resetting after a month, so I could have been wrong there. Was just assuming, since I'd not received any payments in ages.

Honestly it's not that big of a deal to me, as getting Bipolar up on Steam scored me my teaching job at the university which has netted me QUITE A BIT more than any of that in the 3 years I've been doing that + it's kept me motivated to keep doing games dev work, well and truly beyond the span that any of my other uni friends kept doing games dev work for. So in that I'm 100% happy with things. Games dev is more a hobby now, with teaching being the priority, versus games dev being the priority prior to taking up teaching. At the same time though, I'm chasing this one up more on principle than anything. I make more in a month from my online business and teaching than anything from Bipolar.

For me, having one of my games make it to Steam was the holy grail. And I have that now, so I'm happy just with that. For CrossTrix though, VERY different story. I'd like to make some money. When you've moved out of your parents place and have a mortgage to pay. Every bit helps.